Your Mouth is Short

My mom called again the other day. Among other things we discussed my infrequency of blogging and the flurry of activity that happens in the Kokomo Housing Authority office at the end of each period of anxious anticipation for the next installment of My Peace Corps Life.

So, to the ladies of KHA, here you go. Pace yourselves. Make it last. (Oh, and if you did not answer my survey questions, go back and do it, cause that’s what these next few entries are about. It’s just the all the answers to all your questions.)

Survey Responses: Le Nguyen (aka Mom)

1. Who are you and how did you find my blog?

Lady, I forward your blogs to the PC volunteer mom. The mom, Lydia Thompson encourages one of us who has a son or daughter serve in Africa, to join the email to share thought and ideas.

2. What were you in the middle of doing just now? (If it was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, OMG AM I JEALOUS!!!).

Working and starting to read your blog as Mariella, coworker told me , Tammy blogs is updated.

3. What burning question do you have for me that I have not yet answered?

How are your native language going? Do you speak well now?

4. How many times have you laughed, cried, and/or thrown up as you have read my blog?

I laughed or giggle myself many times for you are hilarious not thrown up yet.

5. What is the best/worst/funniest recent moment in your life for which I have been absent?

I miss you the most for not be talking to you on the phone.

6. And last of all, what do you miss most about me???

Your hugs and kisses.



So she wants to know how language is going. How indeed.

Language is a relentless struggle punctuated with an occasional shining moment of glory right when the outlook is so dismal that I am ready to throw in the towel. As the Gambians like to put it, I’m learning slowly slowly.

Learning Mandinka is particularly complex and puzzling in ways that learning Spanish never was. And though I speak Vietnamese, I never actually had to sit and learn it- it just seeped into my brain as I grew up, though I must admit I can barely read and write due to my inattention during Vietnamese lessons the summer after second and third grade. I am thus regrettably illiterate. Sorry Mom.

At any rate, being that I am on my fourth language, you would think I have learned some secrets by now. If you happen to be good at languages like I mistakenly thought I was, or if you have never studied a language before and can’t imagine why Mandinka would be any different from any other, let me outline a few challenges for you now.

Challenge #1: Mandinka is not a written language. It has been passed down orally throughout the years, and the majority of efforts to capture it in writing have been done by missionary groups or Peace Corps. As a result, words are always spelled three different ways by three different teachers and/or books, and being that I am a book studier, each time I run into a different spelling I think I am running into a new word.

Challenge #2: Words have multiple meanings. For example, I ask where my brother Lamen is. They say “A be wuloo kono.” I hear, “He is in the dog.” What they mean is, “He is in the bush.” And when I say bush, I don’t mean a shrub. What I mean is the African countryside. The African bush. Leading to Challenge #3…

Challenge #3: I don’t even understand the English. Tentengo is a “basket for winnowing.” I thought winnowing was some sort of fishing technique. Then I realized I was thinking of minnows. Winnowing is actually the action of tossing rice in the air after it has been pounded in order to separate the grain from the husk. I believe that is what you call it, the cover of the rice is the husk, right?

Then there is kalamaa- “a small calabash.” I thought a calabash might be some sort of bush. The Gambian man sitting next to me told me it was a pot for washing rice. A volunteer told me it was a squash. It finally dawned on me. A kalamaa is the half gourd that makes a cute little bowl! Moving on…

Challenge #4: Translations have no meaning. Either because their English is different from my English, or because literal translations just make no sense. A typical greeting, repeated at least once to every person I meet, every day, regardless if I already know them or not:

Me: Peace be upon you.
Them: Peace be upon you too.

Me: Where are the compound people?
Them: They are there.

Me: You are at peace?
Them: Peace only.

Me: Hope there is no trouble there?
Them: There is no trouble there.

I cease to wonder what that means. If I come upon a group of 15 old men hanging on the side of the road, I must go down the line and shake all their hands and say that entire script to each and every one of them, individually. Which may explain why I generally try to avoid large groups.

Once past the rote memorization greetings, things can get even more confusing. Such as, in response to me saying I am from America, I am asked, “What is there?” The first time it happened I stood there stumped with a puzzled expression on my face as my mind raced through the realm of possible answers. Nothing seemed appropriate. And as I was pondering the question, repeating it out loud during my few moments of contemplation, I must have stalled too long because the woman shouts “She does not hear Mandinka!” To which I think, “I hear Mandinka just fine. What I don’t hear, though, is what I should answer with.”

Next time I’m just going to say, “Obama is there.”

Challenge #5: The dictionary cracks me up. That’s what it is best used for. Yesterday I wanted to buy fabric and thought I should prepare for the event by learning the colors. I had the typical black, white, red, and blue in my notes, but nothing about the colors I really like in clothing. So I went to look up pink, and there is no entry for pink, but there is a word for Pink Peanut. I then move on to purple, and sure enough, no entry found for that word, but there is a word for Purple Heron. I also had tasted some kind of vaguely familiar fruit the other day. After going outside to ask again the word in Mandinka, I go to look it up. Definition: Some kind of fruit.

Challenge #6: Definitions don’t help even when you have them. My host mum yelled at the six-year-old. I didn’t quite know what she said. Turns out he was told, “Your mouth is short.” I don’t know what that means.

Challenge #7: The language is rather fanciful. One time I was told “Your head is not on it on it.” They meant, “You forgot.” To say Chinese people and Vietnamese people are different, I must say, “Chinese people and Vietnamese people are not one.”

But you know, I’m starting to get the hang of it. I had to ask my host mom about moving furniture the other day and was lacking a few key words. Furniture being one. I find it and in trying to memorize it, I realize it is actually a compound word that means “things-in-the-house.” I then need the word for “truck,” and as I subconsciously will my mind to THINK Mandinka, FEEL Mandinka, BE Mandinka, I begin to think speculate that I would be understood if I call the truck a “big car.” But a little obsessively, I look it up anyway. And what do we have? “Moto baa.” Big car.

Ah Haaa! Mandinka, I think I got you figured out!!!